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A Deep Dive Look At The Asus Eee PC 1008HA Seashell Netbook

hothardware.com — Without question, this is the most beautifully designed Eee PC to date. It's just one inch thick, it's elegant, and even the paint selected for this model is of higher quality than what we've seen on competing devices. It's still a netbook at heart, but you can definitely tell this one was designed for those who care about style...

Who dugg this? Made popular Jun 4, 2009

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  • dkirkham, on 06/04/2009, -0/+16" Non-removable Li-ion Battery "

    That's going to be a popular point!
  • keyo, on 06/04/2009, -1/+16Looks nice. But half the battery life of the 1000HE?
  • FruitFocker, on 06/04/2009, -0/+13Because Steve Ballmer is a jerk. Microsoft gives OEMs a huge discount on XP for Microsoft's definition of what a netbook is. To them a netbook can not have more than 1GB of ram. If it does, full price for XP.
  • aserer511, on 06/04/2009, -0/+7shouldn't S101 prices be PLUMMETING as a result?
  • RajAtWork, on 06/04/2009, -0/+6Can I suspend/hibernate in Ubuntu? If so, I 'll buy 10 (seriously)
  • Ricochetbiscuit, on 06/04/2009, -0/+4Looks like about $429
  • diggwut, on 06/04/2009, -0/+4And the actual retail price is...?
  • Snigle, on 06/04/2009, -2/+6Maybe someone can answer this for me:

    Why do Netbooks always come stock with such little RAM? I mean after all DDR2 is dirt cheap you think a good 2GB would be standard.
  • nick9000, on 06/04/2009, -1/+4Looks nice, but I'm waiting for Snapdragon:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mMw_rx_ItQ
  • WesleyD, on 06/05/2009, -0/+3Hell naw *****
  • Snigle, on 06/04/2009, -0/+3Thanks for the reply..to others interested here is an article I found: http://www.maximumpc.com/article/columns/murphys_l ...

    It's sad but true apparently.
  • cannonball, on 06/04/2009, -1/+4I could be wrong about this, but is 2GB necessary for a computer with only a 1.6GHz processor? Do people actually notice a difference? (or just believe they do?)
  • giggsey, on 06/04/2009, -0/+3Well, at least they blurred out the license key on the bottom. Ohh, wait, they didn't!
  • Onion575, on 06/04/2009, -0/+3I've upgraded my Eee PC 900HA from the stock 1gb to a 2gb stick of ram, and I don't think I've ever noticed a difference.
    The weak processor on netbooks nowadays prevents the computer from multitasking, which is pretty much the only reason you would want more memory anyway.
  • billwild, on 06/04/2009, -1/+3Looks like my MSI Wind.
  • inactive, on 06/04/2009, -1/+3God, I wish Apple would make a netbook already. I may end up going Windows or Linux if they don't since my old Powerbook is in such poor shape and I'll likely need a replacement before next tax season. This doesn't seem like a half-bad computer. Just needs more RAM and an external optical drive, but both are relatively inexpensive.
  • edrodgers731, on 06/04/2009, -0/+2I've tried Ubuntu Netbook 9.04 already on the 1008HA. Everything works except networking. By that I mean wireless AND wired Ethernet. No devices are detected.

    Moblin worked with the wireless part.
  • kmb1794, on 06/04/2009, -0/+2I can't really tell a difference other than curb appeal.
  • kierucom, on 06/04/2009, -0/+2It can be upgraded to 2GB; but the seashell version doesn't have an accessible RAM door if I recall correctly; you have to basically tear the thing apart to swap out the 1GB for a 2GB chip.
  • cannonball, on 06/04/2009, -0/+1I can suspend/hibernate with Eeebuntu on the Eee PC 1000HE, so I wanna tell ya you can.
  • inactive, on 06/05/2009, -0/+1Hell yes. I was about to say, aesthetically, it looks almost identical to the 1008HA, but then he said "8-10 hour battery life" and now I can see your point. I want one!
  • mctom987, on 06/04/2009, -2/+3Exactly that. Netbooks.
    They weren't designed to be able to run full-blown desktop applications. They're designed for light web usage.
  • Ricochetbiscuit, on 06/04/2009, -0/+1Kinda like the Air, no?
  • inactive, on 06/05/2009, -0/+1Meh. Not really. But I guess I can kind of see the resemblance, but only just barely. Still though, the MSI Wind is a much sleeker netbook than most of your standard netbooks. Thats probably where the resemblance comes from.
  • inactive, on 06/05/2009, -0/+1That would make sense. Although, they have already dropped it $50. It used to be $599 at launch, now its $549. Its probably not going to drop much more because of the SSD/External HDD bundle. They could bring it down to the 1008HA price if they would just use a regular HDD.

    Now what I want to know is, why is the 1002HA model not cheaper than the 1008HA model? They're priced exactly the same currently. The 1002HA has 3 USB whereas the 1008HA has 2, but the 1002HA has a weaker battery life. I guess they even about out, but I'd like to see it under $400. It's been at $415 for a long time now, but now they're only offering a rebate, which does put it under $400, but its a rebate, so meh.
  • inactive, on 06/05/2009, -0/+1Its because it uses Lithium Polymer, not Lithium-Ion. This is only relevant because Polymer batteries can be arranged/built in more ways than Ion batteries can, which is why you can get that nice super flat/thin profile battery without sacrificing "juice", if you did this with Li-Ion you would get much worse battery life. I'm not sure why they didn't use a higher capacity Polymer. Perhaps just to keep that nice sleek form or perhaps because of cost, I'm not sure. Maybe both? In any case, its an improvement over the 1002HA by about an hour or so, give or take, which uses the same Polymer technology. I believe its 2 cell vs 3 cell?

    Anyways, the 1008HA gets about or more than 4 hours on standard settings. Thats nothing to shake a stick at. Its an unfortunate trade off, but its one that I'd be more than willing to accept. The 1008HA is leaps and bounds better looking than the 1000HE, imo, and I really don't need super amazing battery life, most places I go have outlets anyways.
  • zan2828, on 06/04/2009, -0/+1yarrr good find.
  • orb9220, on 06/04/2009, -0/+1Don't see what it has. Paid the same for my Samsung NC10 and is very stylish. Has removable battery that gives me 5.5-6 hrs. full real world use bluetooth,wifi,etc..On! and 93% keyboard. And matches or beats all other specs of the Asus. So I don't see really what I would be getting ? And The Samsung is such a great netbook which I can opt for the NC20 now with the 12" screen. Always respected Asus 1000 netbook line but this seems a step back.
  • inactive, on 06/05/2009, -0/+1Looks more like natural progression if you ask me. There is only so much you can do with laptop design, you know. Smaller, sleeker, thinner. Thats about it really.
  • inactive, on 06/05/2009, -0/+1There isn't a truly noticeable difference, mostly thanks to the weak processor since its basically a bottleneck.
  • inactive, on 06/05/2009, -0/+1Not like you really need it to be removable anyways. If extended battery life is your concern, I doubt you'll be looking here. You'd be better off with one of those 8-12 hour models, not this 4 hour model. They're cheaper than this model is, too.
  • inactive, on 06/05/2009, -0/+1I don't think it will last. But if it does, meh. I'll just pirate the full Windows 7 to spite them.

    When you ***** over your customers, they tend to ***** you over right back.
  • Nuak, on 06/05/2009, -0/+1I mean a in the way that the border of the screen is black as seen in new Macbooks, and the side looking (from thick to thin) is like the one seen in the Macbook Air.
  • inactive, on 06/05/2009, -0/+1You can buy it from Newegg and Amazon right now, actually.
  • aserer511, on 06/07/2009, -0/+1i guess that's the equivalence, right? one gets you more ports, the other gets you more battery life
  • inactive, on 06/05/2009, -0/+1Its not a step back or forward in any department other than aesthetics, which is a step forward compared to the rest of their line. They just took the 1002HA and made it sleeker and sexier, gave it a bit more battery life but unfortunately took away a usb port.

    The NC10 is very nice, but its not anywhere near as sleek or sexy as the 1008HA. I can't wait until the Snapdragon comes out, its the much improved version of the 1008HA and will also put your NC10 to shame. :)
  • inactive, on 06/05/2009, -0/+1It doesn't need more memory, there isn't a real noticeable difference, mostly thanks to the cpu being a bottleneck in system performance. If they included an external optical drive, it would just drive up the price needlessly.

    What would be so great about an Apple netbook? The 1008HA looks like a Macbook Air. You can install OSX if you want the software, and it would still be cheaper.
  • Nuak, on 06/04/2009, -3/+3Looking a bit like Apple laptops
  • mchlbiorn, on 06/04/2009, -2/+1http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTool ...

    Pre-order for $429 and I believe it ships in October.
  • inactive, on 06/04/2009, -5/+2Will it run Crysis?

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